


Guilt and Longing

by arrafrost



Series: This Spideyfam Has Two Dads [9]
Category: Spider-Gwen (Comics), Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Family Feels, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-01
Updated: 2019-03-01
Packaged: 2019-11-07 06:32:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17955368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arrafrost/pseuds/arrafrost
Summary: “I’ll do it. I’ll stay and close it while you all get back to your dimensions,” Peter B. said definitively. There was no room for argument in his confident voice. Of course it would be him, Gwen thought. Of course another Peter would be lost.





	Guilt and Longing

**Author's Note:**

> Apparently all I do with this Spiderfam is write Gwen angst so here’s a compilation of little headcanons/drabbles of Gwen and her feelings regarding this new dimension

**Gwen & Peters:**

“I’ll do it. I’ll stay and close it while you all get back to your dimensions,” Peter B. said definitively. There was no room for argument in his confident voice. Of course it would be him, Gwen thought. Of course another Peter would be lost.

The first time Peter B. had chimed in, saying that he would stay behind, Gwen immediately protested and insisted it would be her. She couldn’t sit back and watch yet another Peter Parker die. She had stood over the dying body of her best friend, watching the life fade from him after she’d failed him. It was the worst pain she had ever felt and when she was thrust into this universe unexpectedly, the news of Spider-Man aka Peter Parker found dead had only deepened that wound. Now, another Peter Parker was going to give up his life and Gwen could only stand by and watch. She couldn’t save a single one.

Gwen inhaled as Peter B. looked between the faces of all the spiders, sure that Miles wasn’t up to the task. She averted her eyes, shaking her head. It seemed she would always feel weak and useless when it came to the Peters of the world.

When Miles pulled it together and found his courage, Gwen could have hugged him and never let go. He did what she could not do. He saved him. One Peter Parker was going to be alive and well because of him and Gwen never wanted anything bad to happen to another Peter Parker ever again.

-

-

-

**Gwen & Aunt May**

The breath had left her body when the door opened and Aunt May stepped out. Aunt May, her neighbor, the aunt of her best friend, the woman who was like a mother to her. She stood quietly as she watched her and Peter B. interact. This moment wasn’t about her. This woman had recently lost her nephew, the boy she had raised as a son, and here she was being greeted with a slightly older, slightly messier version of that same boy. And with Peter, oh Peter, Gwen recognized that look on his face. She knew immediately that his Aunt May was someone he had to say goodbye to, someone that he lost and was now seeing again. Their faces reflected the same hurt, the same longing, the same feeling of coming home. It was what Gwen felt when she saw Peter’s face on the news before she read the headline, the same feeling she got when she looked into Peter B’s eyes. So she stood back and waited, she could wait.

That wait ended with Gwen sitting at May’s kitchen table, eating freshly baked cookies and waiting for the others to arrive for a training session that afternoon.

“Gwen, dear,” May said, passing Gwen another plate of cookies and sitting across from her. “Tell me what’s on your mind.”

“I-uh, oh um I’m pretty focused on these cookies, Aunt May. I should get the recipe from you before I go back to my dimension so I can-”

“Gwen.” All May did was say her name, but there was a firm, no-nonsense tone that made Gwen freeze up. She sighed, letting her shoulders slump, and she put down the cookie she was about to shove into her mouth to keep herself quiet.

“You- you were my neighbour growing up.” Aunt May smiled in a way that made Gwen think that she knew, that the Gwen in this dimension was also a neighbourhood girl. She would have to look into that deeper another time. For now, she had something to confess. “Peter was my best friend.”

May understood instantly, her tone sympathetic. “You lost him, too.”

Gwen looked up at May, tears welling up in her eyes as she nodded, “Yeah. I uh- I wasn’t fast enough or smart enough or I was just too cocky. I didn’t save him.”

“Sometimes,” May said, nibbling on a cookie. “Sometimes I think the same thing about my boy. Why couldn’t I have done more? What could I have done differently to keep him alive. But Peter was always going to do what he was going to do, dear. No matter what reality he’s in.”

That made Gwen wince. “He wasn’t- he didn’t have powers in my dimension. He was a normal boy. But he wanted to be like me.”

May reached over, taking Gwen’s hand in her own. “He doesn’t need powers to be the same Peter. You couldn’t have stopped him, there was not failing or not saving. That boy. Oh that boy tries and tries and he doesn’t let anything get in his way. And that can be brave and heroic, but it can also be foolish and reckless.”

Her Peter had been the exact same, but then again, so had Gwen. When she got her powers she had been quick to jump into action, she had been as reckless as Miles and Peter and she had been so sure of herself. So sure that she was doing the right thing, that she was the only one who could. Watching Peter die, that had been her wake up call that this isn’t for fun. That there was more responsibility to her power than she had cared to admit. And now, surrounded by spiders, surrounded by a family of hot-headed heroic types, she knew that there were many ways to be a hero and that she wasn’t the only one.

“I- I was so scared to talk to you, Aunt May. I still, I meant I still haven’t really in my dimension except for at Peter’s funeral and I-” Gwen inhales shakely, barely holding back tears. “I just wanted to say that I’m sorry. I can’t say that to my Aunt May because she doesn’t know that I’m Spider-Woman and I can’t put that on her. But I needed to tell you that. I’m sorry I couldn’t protect him. Any of them.”

“Oh, my sweet girl,” Aunt May stood up and moved around the table to embrace Gwen patting her hair as she soothed her. Gwen clung to waist, sobbing against her. “There is nothing for you to apologize for. You are not to blame. You’re so young, you cannot carry the responsibility for all these lives, my girl.”

She said nothing as May held her, even though she heard the door open behind them and felt Aunt May shoo them out when she took her hand off of Gwen’s head, Gwen continued to silently cry and let May hold and comfort her until she was able to compose herself. When her cries settled, May bent down and took Gwen’s face in her hands, wiping her tears away with her thumbs as she looked her straight in the eye. “I do not blame you, Gwen. And one day, I would love for you to not blame yourself.”

Gwen bit her lip and nodded, she wasn’t sure how long it would take her to get there, but with promises to Peter B. and now Aunt May, she was going to try her best to get there.

-

-

-

**Gwen & her dad**

It turns out Gwen was right. There was another Gwen in this dimension. She was older, somewhere in her mid to late twenties, the same age as the Peter in this dimension. Somehow, seeing a slightly older version of herself wasn’t nearly as weird as it was seeing a much older Peter Parker every day, but it definitely gave her a start when she saw her. This alternate Gwen was incredibly different though. She was smart and accomplished. Gwen knew she was smart herself, her and Peter had always competed for the best grades in school, but Gwen loved music more than grades and science and everything that this Gwen apparently loved. The music spoke to her more than equations and that was what Gwen wanted to pursue. She wondered if her dad would be happier with this Gwen as his daughter.

Except she didn’t have to wonder. Captain Stacy seemed incredibly happy to have this Gwen as his daughter. This Captain Stacy didn’t have to be disappointed that his daughter wasn’t going to college after graduating high school - this Gwen clearly had more than a couple degrees. He didn’t have to pester her about getting a real job because band gigs weren’t a steady income - this Gwen obviously was the head of some sort of scientific research department. And he certainly didn’t have to worry about his daughter not responding to phone calls because she was swinging through the city fighting bad guys and the police as she tried to capture Peter’s real killer and clear her name.

Following them around the city definitely wasn’t Gwen’s finest moment. She wasn’t proud of herself for doing it and it certainly didn’t make her feel good about herself. She wished her father would look at her with the amount of pride Captain Stacy looked at his Gwen with. Instead, her father looked at her with disappointment and when she was wearing a mask… she never thought her father could ever look at her with so much anger and contempt - and yet.

Of course, thinking about the tension between herself and her father is what distracted her as she moved to swing off the building and head back to the spidey-house; which meant her web missed the next building; which meant she fell directly onto the hood of a car; specifically the police car driven by Captain Stacy.

“Ow…” Gwen groaned, rolling over to slide off the car and rub her sore shoulder.

“Hey get off of- oh-” Captain Stacy had started yelling but was silenced when we realized there was a masked figure slumped over in front of his car. “Are you, you’re with the other guy, right?”

Gwen was frozen. Here she was, standing in front of Captain Stacy dressed as Spider-Woman and she wasn’t being held at gunpoint, wasn’t faced with a threat of life behind bars with her best friend’s death being thrown in her face once again. He was strangely calm and sounded surprised but pleased to see another vigilante spider before him.

“I-um, yes sir. Spider-Woman, reporting for duty and all that.”

“We thought there was only one of you before but now there’s two more! Why haven’t we seen you before?”

“Oh I, just visiting. Got a whole different city to protect y’know. So I’m only in the neighbourhood for a little while.”

Captain Stacy nods, “Well, you didn’t hear me say this but we appreciate the help.”

That floors Gwen instantly. Captain Stacy wanting the help of the vigilante spiders. Her help. Suddenly she wants to cry but she pulls herself together.

“I- it’s no problem.” Gwen rubs her shoulder awkwardly and gestures behind her, up to the building, “Well, I should be off.”

“That was one hell of a fall, you sure you’re okay?”

“What? No I’m fine Da- UH! Duh! Superpowers and all that! Happens all the time! Well, no not all the time, actually I’m really graceful. Most of the time. Not that time. I uh-”

Captain Stacy has been giving her a puzzling look the entire time, “You sound familiar,” he finally says and Gwen stiffens. She would try to throw her voice like Miles but she didn’t think of that this time. Plus Miles always sounds silly when he does it.

“Just uh- must have one of those voices I guess! Anyway!” Quickly Gwen shoots a web and swings herself out of the situation. She hears Captain Stacy call after her, maybe another thank you, maybe a simple goodbye, it doesn’t really matter because she doesn’t hear him and she isn’t going back. Instead, she parks herself down on another rooftop and pulls out her phone that doesn’t work in this dimension. She stares at the old unanswered messages from her father and thinks that if she has any chance of resolving things with her own father, she’s going to have to go back to her dimension eventually.

**Author's Note:**

> if you want something happier I finally published my wlw novella that I wrote in 2014, find me on tumblr if you wanna check it out


End file.
